Scholarly Communications in the Digital Age
An Online Seminar
Spring 2021
Instructor: Steven Weiland, Professor, Educational Administration
Scholarly Communications in the Digital Age (EAD 991B) is an online seminar for graduate students interested in the impact of technology on research, writing, publication, and academic career development. The course is offered as part of the PhD program in higher education and invites enrollment from graduate students across the University.
After opening attention to the interaction of old and new habits of academic reading and communications, including questions of search, information overload, and personal management of research resources, the course will turn to academic writing. Subjects will include: motivation, disciplinary conventions, making arguments, personal voice, self-assessment and revising, and more. We will also consider writing for the public.
There are two primary texts. With the help of a book-length online hypermedia text written by the instructor students will learn about academic scholarly practices and the rapidly changing digital publishing system. And Helen Sword’s Stylish Academic Writing (Harvard University Press, 2012) will guide students in improving their prose.
The course features conditions today in scholarly publishing and their meanings for career development and academic rewards. Subjects will include: the scholarly “workflow,” new formats for peer review, open access publishing, evolving roles for research libraries, the uses of institutional, disciplinary, and commercial repositories, scholars and social media, and the impact of “altmetrics,” or new ways of discovering the reach of scholarly communications.
EAD 991B is in a self-paced online format, with regular synchronous online class sessions (via ZOOM) at a time to be determined by students. Enrollment is limited to 15. Assignments are designed to probe academic research, writing, and publication practices, featuring an interview-based project on how scholars go about their work in the digital age.
For more about the course contact the instructor: weiland@msu.edu